VentureBeat

Mashery, to put it simply, helps companies to more easily share their data with outside developers. By making this data more accessible, a company can let other developers use their own creativity to put the information to work.

This technology, called application programming interfaces (or APIs), has been around for years, and has assumed new relevance as more web-connected services look to grow. Auction site eBay has let developers build auction services using its auction data for many years, for example. But APIs are buzzwords these days, and exemplified to consumers by social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and rivals, that let third party developers build applications that access their user information and build applications that integrate into their sites.

You’ll find many web start-ups touting the fact that they have an API. But the real value for an outside developer is using others’ data for their own ends, the promise of more established companies with more established data means more opportunity. That’s where Mashery comes in. It provides support, helping software developers at a company to create APIs for accessing company data in easy ways. It helps a company figure out technical specifications for its APIs, based on the company’s business decisions about what data it does or doesn’t want to share.

San Francisco-based Mashery already has some interesting clients, including international news service Reuters, online real estate site Trulia, online directory Whitepages.com and other corporate clients.

We’ve recently learned that Mashery raised a $2 million round from .406 Ventures, First Round Capital, Formative Ventures Emerging Technologies Fund and angel investor Mark Benioff, who is also the chief executive of online business software company Salesforce.com.

The Benioff investment is particularly interesting, because Salesforce has been busy working with Google and many other companies to let its client companies share their data through its software to others. In other words, Benioff must know that many of Salesforce’s clients have valuable data to share and also want to share it. Mashery is in a niche that serves that need.

Of course, eBay, Google, Facebook and many other tech companies build their own APIs. But as more traditional companies with lots of data develop web properties, look for Mashery’s market opportunities to keep on expanding.

FCC chair rejects opening existing wireless networks — A petition from Skype failed to convince FCC chairman Kevin Martin to force wireless carriers to open up their existing networks to outside devices and software, leaving the newly-auctioned 700Mhz airwaves as the only network opened by regulation. More at the WSJ.

PG&E wants 800 - 1,200MW more renewable energy by 2015 — Energy utility PG&E, which supplies the Bay Area, just struck a deal for 900 megawatts of energy from solar thermal company BrightSource. Instead of taking a day of rest, though, the company has gone on to ask for up to 1,200MW more in a public “Request for Offers”, or RFO. It will announce bid winners in July. Via the East Bay Business Times.

Jana refuses board seat, continues attack on CNET — Jana Partners, the fund that is using its 10 percent share in CNET in an attempt to force the company to oust its top executives, has turned down another offer of a board seat. According to a new statement from Jana, CNET’s execs “lack the industry-specific experience and expertise to stop this shareholder value destruction.” It’s sticking to its demands for seven board seats, and has sent a proposal to CNET for an some changes it wants made, including more extensive social networking on the news site. More at Reuters.

Algae could become major source of hydrogen — Auto companies and government are both calling for a hydrogen-fueled transportation infrastructure, but nobody’s quite sure yet where all the cheap hydrogen will come from. The latest possibility is algae, which could be tweaked to release hydrogen, according to researchers at Argonne National Laboratory.

Microsoft’s open-source OOXML standard gets approval — Despite stiff opposition from open source devotees and some advocacy groups, Microsoft’s open document standard, called OOXML, passed an ISO vote to become a recognized standard. As a result, Microsoft will have an easier time keeping governments and some large businesses using its document software. More at Ars Technica.

Cleantech investing doesn’t mean being a nice guy — People, planet and profit: Bill Green, managing director of VantagePoint Venture Capital’s cleantech investments, only cares about one of those factors, and you can probably guess which. “You really don’t want the chief sustainability officer, you want the chief financial officer,” he says. “We need to change this conversation around. The chief sustainability officer, man he’s your friend. He drinks the cool-aid, he wakes up in the morning, he reads your blog, he so gets this, he hates George Bush, it’s all good. That’s not going to get us to done.” More Green tips for green investing over at Greenbang (no relation).

Mashery launches WhitePages API — A new API from Mashery will allow developers to easily add people search to their applications. The company is growing quickly, according to a post on ReadWriteWeb.

Samsung’s iPhone killer and Microsoft smartphones — Samsung has released its ‘Instinct’ phone, an iPhone competitor that “does a decent job aping Apple’s phone”, according to the Silicon Alley Insider. The phone got better reviews from other sources, but as SAI points out, a new, even better iPhone is due out next quarter. Meanwhile, Microsoft announced that it is releasing Windows Mobile 6.1 and an upgrade to Internet Explorer Mobile, which the company says will have more security and easier navigation.

San Francisco start-up Mashery has raised another round of capital to help Web companies open their platforms so that developers can build applications on top of them.

By releasing an API, or Application Programming Interface, a company can allow “mashups” of its data, and gain reach across the Web. Google did this with Google Maps, for example, mixing them with everything from housing to restaurant information. Now all sorts of businesses — banks for example — are doing this with more sensitive information, some of it requiring significant management of terms and conditions.

The amount was undisclosed, but we’ve heard it was less than $5 million.

The latest funding comes from the Formative Ventures and The Accelerator Group, as well as additional funding from First Round Capital. We first reported about the company here.

The round-up of crucial stuff in Silicon Valley:

Did MySpace’s Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson get shortchanged? — VentureBeat has heard that MySpace, the biggest success of the Web 2.0 wave so far, in terms of users, wasn’t such a great a hit for the co-founders. Word is, Chris DeWolfe ended up with a mere $5 million, even though the company was sold as part of Intermix for $580 million. We haven’t been able to confirm this (MySpace declined comment), but that’s a pittance, if true. The founders were watered down considerably by investors.

The Mercury News has an interview with Ross Levinsohn (pictured above), who runs News Corp’s Fox Interactive division — and who was behind the purchase of MySpace — and asks him whether the co-founders are unhappy. He responds: “There’s no indication to me that they’re unhappy.”

Levinsohn spoke at the Web 2.0 conference today, and addressed a different thorn — Brad Greenspan, the former chief executive of Myspace, who keeps suing the company on allegations it lied to its investors about its value. Levinsohn said:

He’s lost every single motion he’s charged against us. It’s like when Mike Tyson kept trying to win this fight, and the guy kept getting up …It’s kinda sad…two years before we bought the company, they kicked him out. For a guy who got $40 or 50 million from the sale, I mean…life’s too short.

(via Valleywag)

Yahoo’s acquisition binge at screeching halt? — Yahoo’s stock is in the toilet, and maybe that’s why its lost is appetite to buy companies. Check out this chart of acquisitions by the big three over the past years. Google and Microsoft are munching companies as eagerly as ever (18 between them), whereas Yahoo has acquired just one (Jumpcut), according to this chart at least.

Timebridge raises $6 million for… yet another calendar-scheduling company? — The San Francisco start-up, founded in March of last year that, lets you schedule meetings easily within your calendar. It has launched a private testing version. Chief executive Yori Nelken showed VentureBeat a demo Monday, and it has some cool features to save time organizing meetings among two or more people — like letting users block out possible meeting times, and letting their friends or contacts see the times through a central “meeting space.” When the friend selects a time, the slot is automatically booked for both people. So why all the dough? The company has invested resources into integrating various clients — it has a plugin for Outlook, for a Web version, for Blackberry/Treo, Apple, Thunderbird, Notes, etc — that it can work on whatever calendar you have. Timebridge wants to serve the busy professional, and is letting Google conquer the consumer market.

Mayfield and Norwest are the backers. More details at the site’s tour; see top-right). The basic service will be free, but revenue will could from a subscription for added security, archiving and admin features. Nelken thinks the market would accept a range of $30 to a $100 per user per year. It might also get referral fees from companies like Open Table.

Mashery lets you outsource your development — It handles the open API process for companies.

FON now the largest WiFi access network — VentureBeat caught up with Neil Rimer Wednesday, investor in FON, a company that lets people share each other’s WiFi routers. He says the service is doing well in Europe, particularly in Spain, and now has more access points globally than than any other WiFi access point network, including Boingo and T-Mobile. It was also a good move to hire Joanna Rees Gallanter for U.S. operatons, because she can apparently “talk a dog off a meat wagon,” a different skill than running a venture firm. The Madrid company also bought the popular Firefox extension, GSpace, for an undisclosed amount, GigaOm first reported. The FireFox extension allows users to treat their GMail accounts as an online file storage locker — to be launched in Feb 2007, it is essentially a FON router that will have a USB 2.0 port.

Workday’s missed opportunity — Dave Duffield, the founder of PeopleSoft may be back with new start-up Workday, but critique Jeff Nolan says it missed the opportunity to say something new. In other words, it got great media coverage because of Duffield, but it was ho-hum in the details.

Will Flock’s new chief executive turn things around? — From the beginning, Flock, which was supposed to be a social browser, failed to meet hyped expectations. It had potential, but never executed. A new chief exec, Shawn Hardin, has taken over the Mountain View company. He’s a media veteran, having worked at Yahoo, AOL Broadband and NBC. We’ve just had a sneak peak at Flock’s 1.0 browser, and it’s got some promising features — question is, can Flock convince people to make their browser their central work place or not.

Charles River Ventures STIRRs — Fresh from announcing its new attractive seed investment strategy (where it gives out $250,000 checks to promising ideas, Silicon Valley venture firm Charles River is getting submerged by entrepreneurs eager to pitch. It’s also been invited to mix with the masses — at the Nov. 15 STIRR event, a gig usually reserved for start-ups to give one-minute pitches. The Charles River gang — George Zachary, Bill Tai, and Susan Wu — will get 60 seconds to pitch the crowd. We bumped into Susan Wu today at the Web 2.0 conference; she said she was overwhelmed with dealflow.

Lightspeed Venture Partners keeps adding — Silicon Valley venture firm Lightspeed just named three new associates, Patrick Chiang, Andrew Chung and John Vrionis (as you’ll see on this page of blue shirts). This is the firm that recently saw a split, with several partners leaving to form Opus. We won’t call the Opus guys renegades, because they also like blue shirts ;)